Indigo 3.2

Indigo 3.2 marks the latest release of Indigo Renderer, the world's most photorealistic rendering system.
Indigo 3.2 introduces new features such as the groundbreaking new sun & sky system, direct integration into Cinema 4D, and major performance improvements.
All these features, together with new documentation and tutorials, make this the most powerful and easiest-to-use Indigo yet.

Indigo 3.2 introduces a new sun & sky system based on our highly accurate atmospheric simulation. Unlike the classical sun & sky model which breaks down when the Sun is at low elevation, the new model remains true to life.

Computed directly from the physical laws which produce blue skies and red sunsets in nature, the new system produces extremely realistic skies at any time of day; not only is it more realistic, but it also renders faster.

Pure CPU rendering speed is up to 2.5x faster in CAD scenes and 20 - 50% faster in most architectural scenes, as a result of significant optimisation efforts in the core since Indigo 3.0.

Start-up time has been dramatically reduced in many cases, especially when using environment maps and many light sources. This enables much faster feedback when creating scenes and greatly accelerates animations of simple scenes.

Network rendering efficiency has been greatly improved, scaling much better with added computers.

Image by Oscar

Realistic rendering crucially depends on the ability to create realistic materials, and we've been working hard on improving the material editing capabilities introduced in Indigo 3.0. The new material editing interface is more compact, easier to use and places a stronger emphasis on workflow.

The online material database browser has been complemented with an offline material database, which holds all materials you've downloaded from the online database. The new material painting tool allows you to apply materials to objects simply by clicking on them.

Indigo material editing interface. Material by Galinette.

From vast city-scapes to small engineering details - Indigo now robustly handles all scene scales much better than previous versions.

Network rendering is now also more robust, handling realtime changes and large scenes more effectively.

GPU accelerated rendering now benefits from increased convergence speed and more accurate handling of scene geometry. CUDA and OpenCL are now supported on all platforms, and performance with older GPUs has been improved.

Image by Axel Ritter

Working with Indigo from within Cinema 4D is easier than ever, thanks to the direct integration into Cinema 4D -
allowing for fast material and render previews, and enabling a much tighter workflow.

Because it works entirely in memory you don't have to wait for your hard drive, greatly decreasing the time until you see the resulting render.

You can now work entirely in Cinema 4D if you want, or save the scene to disk and render it with the standalone Indigo.

We continue to move forward with great new features, however we are also committed to improving existing features and resolving issues which have come up along the way. Many bugs and usability issues have been resolved since Indigo 3.0.

Indigo now ships with an all-in-one installer, which also runs installers for the SketchUp, Blender and Cinema4D exporter plugins.

For a comprehensive list of changes since the 3.0 release, click here.